Fall Deliveries week 2

This week, you're receiving: Collard Greens, White Turnips and their greens, long green radishes, and some round Misato Rose ones, big purple and little green pac choys, arugula, and sorrel – that's one bag. In the other bag, sweet potatoes, a few sweet peppers (dwindling supply now), onions, garlic, and a couple of green tomatoes for a fried treat.

This morning after the collards were picked, I headed up the hill to do some more harvesting. I was thinking: “I'll pick a few radishes, then see how the turnips are doing. If they're big enough, I'll pick a few of them, and maybe some kale to top it off.” But the turnips are doing much better than I thought – the bulbs are still a little small (but they taste so good that way!) - but the greens are really big and luscious. They don't hold up so well in the bag, waiting for delivery, but they're FINE to eat. By the time I picked some turnips, it felt like kale ontop of it all might be overwhelming. There will certainly be more kale available next week!

So, here's a few things about greens. Greens 101, if you like.

To store greens – wrap them well – tightly is OK – in a plastic bag in the crisper drawer if possible. If there are radish or turnip bulbs attached to your greens, cut them off about an inch above the stem and store them separately. Bulbs will keep longer than greens, if that helps your culinary decision making.

You can also wash and prep your greens before you store them. It's a fine thing to do. If you are getting really into greens and you don't yet have a salad spinner, I suggest you buy one. The ones they carry at Walmart aren't all that good – TJMaxx or Ross sometimes have nice ones in their kitchen sections, and Kroger and Target carry good ones. They're more expensive, but we've never regretted investing in a worthy kitchen tool.

Another word about cooking green storage. Sometimes it can be good to just cook a whole big batch of greens at once, then pop the leftovers into a baggy and keep them in the fridge. You can chop them up for an omelet, blend them into a soup from there with little hassle. The baggy could also go straight to the freezer for some cold day when greens aren't available.

As for eating these heartier greens, the same rules apply to them as do to salad fixings. A little oil (or butter, or bacon drippings if you're a really traditional southerner), and some vinegar (we like balsamic) make just about any of the basic cooking greens work. You can steam them with just a little water in the bottom of a pan, or steam-fry them with some coconut or olive oil (this works well with the thicker greens like the dark lacinato kale and collard greens). Some chopped garlic in the pan can add depth, as can additions like ground cumin and coriander, and a splash of lemon juice just before serving.

For more information, about more vegetables, please follow this link:

http://www.angelicorganics.com/ao/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=131&Itemid=239

Scroll down and there will be a list of vegetables – linked with options for word or pdf docs to accompany them. The recipes are good. The storage information is good. If you like it, you might consider buying the book: Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables. We use it frequently.

Also – if you're not quite sure which greens are which, please go to our blog: http://redspringsfamilyfarm.blogspot.com/

I am putting up a new page for vegetable identification with some nice photos. I'll try to add to it as we go along. Also, you can find a HUGE backlog of recipes from our newsletters of several seasons past.

Ok – that's enough out of me. Keep warm and eat your greens. Safe and happy Halloween!

Coree

week 24

Lettuce Tennessee Sweet Potato Squash (Cushaw)

Fun Jen Chinese Cabbage Collard Greens Kale

White Potatoes Acorn squash Garlic

Herb bag: Celery Parsley Dill

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude. ” ― Denis Waitley

Giving Thanks. We're grateful for the awesome abundance that continues to pour forth from the soil of this little hollow. It's been a pleasure to work the ground and get to know you all this season. We hope that the food we've brought to town has served to bring health and general deliciousness into your life this year. Be well!

We're taking a week off from veggie delivery next week – Happy Thanksgiving. There's still more food in the garden than one family can possibly eat this winter, so we will continue bringing it to you until the weather and supply slow us down. Look for an email on the Monday or Tuesday after Thanksgiving for details.

Another experimental garden squash greets you this week. It resists vine borers, couldn't care less about drought, and may have been cultivated in the Americas for as many as 5,000 years (THAT'S some history). This is the Tennessee Sweet Potato, Cushaw, Green Striped Bell, and many other names. We were initially attracted to its name because we so love sweet potatoes. Upon reading the fine print, and cooking one of these monsters, we're not at all sure why they received that name. When we search for specifics about it's eating qualities, we find a mixed bag. Some folks think these squash are for decorative purposes only. They are dramatic. AND, then there is a deep Southern tradition of using Striped Cushaw, or whatever we want to call them, in place of pumpkins in pie or sweet butter. That's two very distinct opinions about what to do with a squash. That said, we worked with the Cushaw this week and were pleasantly surprised at how nice a pie it makes. The color is lighter, and flavor is milder than butternut, our usual favorite pie squash, so the flavor of the spices, and even the sweetener (we use sorghum) comes more into play. At least, you can create a wonderful decorative side or centerpiece from this squash. At most, you can roast it, make soup, pie, and freeze some squash flesh to enjoy later.

It is interesting to contemplate that as recently as one hundred fifty years ago folks, by and large, weren't always making food decisions based solely on taste. How well a food grew in their backyard had a whole lot to do with how much of it was eaten. When you've got a cow to milk, young'uns to feed, and a fire to tend, picky vegetables fall by the wayside. Those crops that don't demand so much tending become highly favored. Seeds didn't fly in airplanes yet, so we were also more bound to what had migrated en masse with different peoples.

Greens this week include Fun Jen – the lettucey leaf Chinese Cabbage. It makes a fine addition to salad. You might want to lean on it to help stretch out this lettuce – there won't be more lettuce coming for quite awhile! Fun Jen also stir fries just fine.

Collard Greens. These are like the meat of the brassica family. The dark green round leaves are thick and full. Traditionally, these are made with bacon grease. If that's not your thing, I recommend coconut oil, tamari, and garlic. Yummmmm.

To store your greens, wrap them tight in a plastic bag (they really don't mind) and keep them in your crisper drawer. You can keep these big chinese cabbages in a cooler on your back porch now that it's cool weather.

Last night was the coldest so far in this cold snap. It was 22 degrees down here this morning. The celery was still frozen when we harvested it. It's not clear how well it will recover. It should be good at least for use in soups and turkey dressing.

Usually my recipes are about the food in your basket. It only makes sense, of course. But with Thanksgiving coming, my mind is wandering. I want to share this pie with you. It is an excellent change from the old standard pies. I wish we could grow cranberries down here; we would send them to you for this recipe. Maybe we should make the hollow into a bog . There's a winter project!

Cranberry-Pear Pie (from Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions)

1 recipe pie crust (2 rounds) 12 oz cranberries

1 cup maple syrup 6 large pears

4 ½ tsp arrowroot dissolved in 2 Tbsp cold water

Line a 9-inch pie plate with pie crust dough and reserve the rest for making lattice. Place cranberries and maple syrup in a saucepan. Peel and core pears and cut into ½ inch pieces, adding to maple syrup as you cut. Bring syrup to a boil and cook, stirring, for several minutes until cranberries begin to pop. Add the arrowroot mixture and cook another minute more, stirring constantly. Let cool slightly. Pour into pie shell. Make a lattice to cover the pear mixture and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.

Feast well and enjoy thinking grateful thoughts.

We hope to see you soon.

Paul, Coree, Lulah and Levon Entwistle